Rabbi Yehoshua ben Korcha רבי יהושע בן קרחה
the Tanna who said "vinegar, son of wine"
Rabbi Yehoshua ben Korcha was a Tanna of the fourth generation. The name "Korcha" means "the bald"; a tradition the Talmud discusses but does not affirm sees in him a son of Rabbi Akiva.
What fixed him in memory: when Rabbi Elazar, son of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, took up catching Jewish thieves for Rome, it was Rabbi Yehoshua ben Korcha who sent him the words that became a proverb: "Vinegar, son of wine! How long will you deliver the people of our God to slaughter?"—a son unlike his father, who had hidden from that same Rome thirteen years in a cave (Bava Metzia 83b).
His too is the explanation of why the Shema is recited before "And it shall be if you hearken": first one accepts the kingship of Heaven, and only then the yoke of the commandments (Berakhot 13a). The order of those two passages in every prayer comes from his word.
The sources give no years of life; the window of activity is set by generation, following Aharon Hyman's Toldot Tannaim ve-Amoraim.
On the timeline
Related
Sources
Chazal: Mishnah, Talmud, midrash, Zohar
- Bava Metzia 83b — «vinegar, son of wine»
- Berakhot 13a — why the Shema precedes «And it shall be if you hearken»
Basis: Talmud and midrash.